Writing A Story Can't Be That Hard
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: ...Can it? / (Or: why DID Holmes write the adventure of the Blanched Soldier?)


They were sent back with a note attached. "Holmes, it is an interesting case but I can't publish it like this. The public are not interested in lectures, as I have always told you. They are interested in stories. This may be very well for teaching the art of deduction, but unfortunately the general public is not so eager to learn the art of deduction that they would read a lecture on the subject just because you wrote it and it is published with my stories. That's just not the way these things work. You need to interest the reader if you wish them to remember anything you say."

Holmes read the note, and with a huff, threw it aside. His papers were in perfect order, but they had been looked through. He could tell from the note that Watson was trying to be nice to him, to break it to him gently that no one would want to read what he had written—that it was boring. Why? He'd never done that before …oh. Watson thought this was the best he could do! Watson thought he couldn't write a story! Holmes picked up the note again, reading it more closely this time.

Very well. If it must be a story, then it _would_ be a story. He would show Watson. After all, writing a story can't be _that_ hard, can it?

He spread his papers on the floor. So. A story must have a beginning, middle, and end. But how did you turn a case into a story?

He realized he had been staring at the papers on the floor for the last ten minutes. His attention kept drifting back to Watson's note. Watson, of course. He must have those Strand magazines somewhere…

He came back with every single account Watson had published of their cases. Then, turning every one to the first page, he laid them out on the floor above his lecture. How did Watson begin his stories?

_To Sherlock Holmes she is always The woman._ Hum. Romanticism.

_I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him deep in conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair._ Abrupt.

_"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."_ He was beginning to see a pattern here. The beginning must be unusual, something engaging. He must catch the reader's interest from the very first. (He remembered that conversation with Watson, in fact they'd had it several times. But he thought he remembered saying it a little differently. _Embellishments_, then.) And it surely wasn't _just_ before they got the case of 'Miss Mary Sutherland'. What had that been about anyway? He flipped through to the end. Ah, yes. Mr. Windibank, aka. Hosmer Angel. (He thought he detected some irony in the names Watson had given the man. Perhaps it was more of his humor. He just couldn't tell with Watson sometimes.)

_We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way:_ _Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. Leave Paddington by the 11:15. _A juxtaposition of situations, introducing himself and his wife at breakfast, and a telegram with the words 'tragedy' and 'perfect' only two sentences away. Unfortunately, he was afraid that was verbatim. (Why had Watson put it in the story? Did Watson keep every telegram he'd ever gotten from him, just in case he needed them for… inspiration?)

He started with something concrete, and without much introduction …as if he were telling the story to a friend.

_When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave._ …And then he went on to give tantalizing hints of a few of them. This opening was different. Ah. He was talking to the reader. How fascinating. Yes, he remembered this case of course, he had been too late and the poor man had died. It still rankled. Hmmm. 'Singular features', indeed. Ah. More romanticism. …Yet another pattern? Ordinary life before it is disturbed by the case? Perhaps. He hadn't read these stories since they first came out, though he contributed to some of them, helping Watson to change some facts. Curious. These were strangely compelling, even though he could see no logical reason why they should be.

It was like reading about someone else, almost. Was that really how Watson saw him?

_Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D. D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. _Again, the…abrupt, unusual, he supposed it was, first sentence.

And this one…_The Blue Carbuncle_, started similarly to _The Red-Headed League_. In fact, he might even say it followed the same pattern. This really was more work than he'd thought, it had its own kind of internal logic. He found more respect for his friend's writing the more he thought about it. Ah, and this one, _The Speckled Band_, started like _The Five Orange Pips_. Amazing. What about the next? The same! Hmm. So far, he started in two ways: either by giving some overview, talking to the reader first before he entered the story; or by going straight to an interesting place and starting there with no explanation. He almost felt as if he were really there, next to Watson. How unusual. How did he do it?

The next started the same way as the last. So, usually Watson started with a short introduction, then. And the next: different from the last, this was beginning type two again. _"Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, "here is a madman coming along. _He chuckled. Watson really was good at this, wasn't he. And the next—the 'ordinary life before it's interrupted' like _A Case of Identity_, and another type two beginning. They usually went together, didn't they? In fact, yes, the slice of everyday life took the place of the introduction in the type two beginning. This was marvelous!

And here: _Silver Blaze_. The same beginning as the last.

Oh. This one was different. _The Yellow Face_. That was the Norbury case, wasn't it? First there was a little introduction, and then…more introduction. Or was it…oh dear. Was this type two or type one? It seemed to be both!

He skipped quickly over that. Clearly, this was just an aberration. Something that 'Writers' did, perhaps, to keep things interesting, not anything he needed to know. (This was looking harder and harder, and he hadn't even started writing yet.)

And this, _The Stock-Broker's Clerk_…this would be an introduction, most probably. A type one beginning. Though he was starting to wonder if they didn't shade into each other. Perhaps the two types of beginnings weren't as clear-cut as he'd thought. This wasn't like tobacco ash, with absolutes, or deduction, with 'rights' and 'wrongs.' Wasn't there anything like _rules_ for this sort of stuff?

But he wasn't going to be beaten by Watson. If Watson could do it, surely he could as well.

Ah. This one was easy, definitely a type two. And… Holmes got a strange feeling. This was his story, wasn't it? Watson had 'embellished' it a bit, smoothed out some rough edges, but most of his story had been kept relatively untouched. So Watson did think he could tell a story, just not that he could write one. He did admit, now, that they seemed to be different things. There must be a difference to writing them. Well, you had to describe the things you wouldn't need to if you were telling the story…what the teller looked like, how they moved, all sorts of little details. This made sense. After all, it is in the details that most clues are hidden. And… and most of the details in the story centered around…oh. Perhaps… these stories weren't so much about the cases, were they? They were about the _people_.

…Brilliant… He wasn't sure if he quite understood the purpose of these stories, but for a moment he caught a glimpse… He'd always said Watson observed better than the ordinary person, he just missed everything of importance. But that was it, wasn't it? Watson did notice the important things, _his_ important things. He created characters on the page like drawings, full of life and personality, scenes that would stay with you long after you had forgotten what clues had led to the discovery of the culprit. He was an _artist_.

Holmes looked back over the stories. He had been missing the whole point. That was what had kept nagging at him. This was art, like a painting or a piece of music.

But he couldn't do the things Watson did with his words. He couldn't make this art. He got up off the floor, lit his pipe, and looked out the window, puffing furiously. There was a reason to finish writing the story, if only to show Watson that he appreciated what his friend had made. All this time he had chided Watson for what he had made, not understanding. Why hadn't Watson explained? He smiled ruefully. He wouldn't have understood. Watson knew that, and so he had said nothing.

But he must make it up to him.

It was beginning to get dark, and lunch lay forgotten on the table. Here was a problem of the utmost importance, and he was dashed if he wasn't going to solve it.

…

He sat at the table with a few sheets of foolscap paper and a pen. He would start with the introduction, since, first of all, without Watson, there was nothing very interesting to say about his everyday life, and also that he wanted to put an apology in there somehow.

_Let's see…Well…_ after a few moments of staring at the page, paralyzed, and having no idea of what to write, he took a deep breath and began. _The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write an experience of my own. Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures. "Try it yourself, Holmes!" he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that, having taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realize that the matter must be presented in such a way as may interest the reader._

He looked over what he'd written. It wasn't the most inspired of beginnings, but it would serve, for its purpose. It was an apology, not a masterpiece. He went on. _The following case can hardly fail to do so, as it is among the strangest happenings in my collection, though it chanced that Watson had no note of it in his collection. Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances. A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate. _There. Now he had a compliment too. He admitted to himself that perhaps the last sentence contained a bit of weaseling out, but then Watson knew him. He would look past his hedging and find what he really meant to say. And it would have the added benefit that no one else would, if by some fluke this actually got _published_.

_I find from my notebook_ (from his lecture actually, but it sounded like something Watson would say) _that it was in January, 1903, just after the conclusion of the Boer War, that I had my visit from Mr. James M. Dodd,_ (no hidden message in the name, Watson would have put one in but he wouldn't try) —_A_; lets see… he rummaged around in Watson's stories and found some of his descriptions. —_big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. _Yes, that was good. No telling of his age and occupation and what he had eaten for breakfast. (Not that he _remembered_ what the man had eaten for breakfast, if he'd even known in the first place.)

_The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone. _Hmmm. Perhaps not so good in an apology, but it _was_ true. And perhaps it was a bit self-pitying, but… No, he wasn't going to go back and fix it, it could just stay in. It wasn't as if anyone but Watson was going to read it.

He looked back at Watson's stories lying on the floor. Watson always put his observations in, and some thoughts, perhaps it wouldn't be amiss to put his deductions in there somehow… and it _had_ happened that way… perhaps he could slip in a tip or two for an aspiring Consulting Detective… after all, Watson told people about his books and other writings in every way possible that didn't sound forced, so it _did_ fit. _It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place my visitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them. Mr. James M. Dodd seemed somewhat at a loss how to begin the interview. I did not attempt to help him, for his silence gave me more time for observation. I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions. _

_"From South Africa, sir, I perceive."_

_ "Yes, sir," he answered, with some surprise. _

_"Imperial Yeomanry, I fancy." _

_"Exactly." _

_"Middlesex Corps, no doubt." _

_"That is so. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard." _

_I smiled at his bewildered expression. _—He _had_ looked so very bewildered, though. Watson would appreciate it. If he had been there he would have looked at Holmes, and perhaps they would have smiled together. Of course Watson would know how he'd figured it out, he was very observant, and it had been years since he had to explain all but the most complicated of his deductions. Not that Watson didn't pretend not to know, so he could show off, and have someone to applaud him.

Yes. In their very first case together, it was Watson who had dragged him to the scene of the crime and shown him how exiting hands-on deduction could be. But that was because he had someone to share it with. Without Watson, he had cases. With Watson, he had adventures. Somehow he didn't think Watson had ever really gotten that part.

Ah, yes. The story. The deductions were there, now he had to say how he'd arrived at them. That's what he'd been about to write before he started daydreaming… It was night now. He hadn't even noticed. That's why it was so dark; he could hardly see the page in front of him.

He lit a few lamps and set them around his papers on the table, then wrote out his deductions. He put them as if that was how he had spoken them exactly, but it was hardly likely that he remembered it completely accurately. Really, what did it matter? The only reason it needed to be accurate was his own perfectionist standards. Watson hadn't been there, it _could_ have happened like that.

_"When a gentleman of virile appearance enters my room with such tan upon his face as an English sun could never give, and with his handkerchief in his sleeve instead of in his pocket, it is not difficult to place him. You wear a short beard, which shows that you were not a regular. You have the cut of a riding-man. As to Middlesex, your card has already shown me that you are a stockbroker from Throgmorton Street. What other regiment would you join?" _

_"You see everything." _

_"I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I see. However, Mr. Dodd, it was not to discuss the science of observation that you called upon me this morning. What has been happening at Tuxbury Old Park?"_

Watson would have called it dramatic, but compared to some of the things _he_ had written…

(Let there be mystery… tell the story starting from the end, like Watson does, then go back and explain it…) he started to write again, and suddenly the words came fast, and the scene unfolded in his mind as if he were reliving it as he put it down on the page.

_"Mr. Holmes—!" _

_"My dear sir, there is no mystery. Your letter came with that heading, and as you fixed this appointment in very pressing terms it was clear that something sudden and important had occurred." _

_"Yes, indeed. But the letter was written in the afternoon, and a good deal has happened since then. If Colonel Emsworth had not kicked me out—" _

_"Kicked you out!" _

_"Well, that was what it amounted to. He is a hard nail, is Colonel Emsworth. The greatest martinet in the Army in his day, and it was a day of rough language, too. I couldn't have stuck the colonel if it had not been for Godfrey's sake."_

Perfect. He didn't go back and read it now, but kept writing, his pen flying across the page. _Describe the people… put emotion into the scene if there isn't some already…write it as if you were Watson._

The statement of the case. Usually he would put only the salient bits, staying dry and factual, but… he looked through Watson's stories. Watson wrote it like conversation. _He_ could write it like conversation.

He was writing pages now, letting his imagination run away with him, putting in what he remembered and mixing in anything that sounded nice. Part of him cringed at the blatant disregard of everything a consulting detective should hold dear, but another part of him was invigorated, exulting, as if he was on the chase.

_This_ was why Watson wrote. (And this was why he never published anything while he was living with him. How would it feel to be criticized on something that gave you such joy? As if you solved a crime and no one cared.)

He ran out of paper and had to go hunting for more. It was pitch dark now, and it didn't seem as if there was a soul in the world awake besides him.

When he ran out of inspiration he would pick up a story of Watson's at random and read it, then go back to his writing, new ideas waiting to come out. He thought, perhaps, that he was putting a little too much of the story in someone else's words, but then, Watson had told two stories using mostly _his_ words, so it must be all right. And even if it wasn't he didn't care. Every so often he would put in movement, description, everything a person would see and not remember, things that were of no real importance (or even accuracy) but made it seem as if you were there. He put in mystery and more mystery, and false clues (though he could not take all the credit for those) and then remembered the climax of _The Speckled Band_, and with the story on the table next to his papers, tried to write his client's words of the man outside the window in that same way, using the other as a guide. _–something slinking, something furtive, something guilty–_Surely even _Watson_ could not write anything more… lurid.

This was turning out to be quite an apology. He was content not to have this published; (Watson was right, he didn't have that which made Watson's stories so alive.) But for trying something new…he didn't think he'd ever try to write another story, but it was… he had learned so many things. Solving crimes just didn't give him the same feeling anymore, not without Watson. He'd always entertained vague ideas of someday retiring, but perhaps it was worth thinking about. He had enough money to retire. If he retired, he could devote his life to solving other kinds of puzzles…

He decided he must be more tired than he thought if he was seriously entertaining this idea. He didn't want to stop, but he reluctantly turned off the lamps and lay in bed, though his mind wouldn't stay still. He closed his eyes and began to compose a new piece for the violin, and eventually he fell asleep.

…

For once he was glad he didn't have a case. Holmes awoke at first light and went to the table, looking at where he'd left off. Ah, yes. His client…what had he named the man? Was about to go out in search of his friend.

He was not in the strange mood he had been in last night, and his first few tries didn't sound right at all. He crumpled them and let them fall to the floor, his frustration growing. Had Watson ever felt this way?

He tried all morning but the story seemed to have deserted him. Finally Mrs. Hudson ventured to say that perhaps, he might think better after he'd had something to eat, or taken a walk, or maybe played some music. Since he clearly wasn't getting anywhere with the story he agreed. Perhaps it was like a case. Sometimes you had to stop thinking so hard and just take a break, trust that it will come to you when the time is right. He was not very good at waiting, he never had been, but he knew good advice when he heard it.

So all that day, and the next, and the next, he didn't write the story, which lay untouched on the side of the table. It was almost a week later, after he'd solved five simple cases in a row, that he finally felt a little more able to think about the story.

This time the man ran after his friend, and the air was just mysterious enough, the rhythm just right. He read more of Watson's stories when his hand became tired, and he felt like he got the story to sound as if it might better fit with one of his friend's. He carefully wove the clues in so the discerning reader might find them, and every so often, when he felt the annoying man had said enough, interrupted him. (Always for a good reason, of course.) He stayed closer to what had really happened, all around, than he had on the first night. Eventually, finally, that part was done, and he could write… _Such was the problem which my visitor laid before me. It presented, as the astute reader will have already perceived, few difficulties in its solution, for a very limited choice of alternatives must get to the root of the matter. Still, elementary as it was, there were points of interest and novelty about it which may excuse my placing it upon record. I now proceeded, using my familiar method of logical analysis, to narrow down the possible solutions. _This was the type of writing he was more familiar with, much easier for him, and he could take most of it from the lecture he'd sent to Watson. He made himself talk as if he were moving a puppet that looked like him, or perhaps as if he were in a dream…almost him, but not quite. Holmes wondered that Watson didn't feel awkward when he wrote about himself in his stories. Perhaps he did, and that's why he made Holmes do most of the talking. …_it was not until the beginning of the next week, as my diary records, that I was able to start forth on my mission to Bedfordshire in company with Mr. James M. Dodd. As we drove to Euston we picked up a grave and taciturn gentleman of iron-gray aspect, with whom I had made the necessary arrangements. _He hadn't meant to write _diary_, but it was written, so there it would stay. He couldn't imagine going back and _fixing_ the story. He'd already written it once, he wasn't going to do it again!

He liked that phrase, _iron-gray aspect, _it had a nice sound to it.

_The narratives of Watson have accustomed the reader, no doubt, to the fact that I do not waste words or disclose my thoughts while a case is actually under consideration._

The reader, meaning Watson. He always was so impatient, and sometimes Holmes didn't tell him just so he could watch Watson trying not to ask. …_Alas, that I should have to show my hand so whenI tell my own story! It was by concealing such links in the chain that Watson was enabled to produce his meretricious finales. _He wasn't sure if _meretricious_ in describing Watson's writing should really be in an apology, but he was in no mood to apologize to Watson for making him write this apology. (Clearly, that made no sense at all. But _meretricious_ stayed.)

He debated about concealing what he had written in the note to 'Colonel Emsworth', but Watson would know what it said anyway, and if _he_ was entitled to write meretricious finales, so could Holmes.

Now he got to the most exiting part, the story of 'Godfrey'. His client really kept saying the man's name far too often. Now he couldn't get the name out of his head!

In preparation, he read the climaxes of a group of Watson's stories, and spread them around him as he wrote. He thought, after reading it again, that, though there could not be much said for the rest of it, 'Godfrey's' story was as good as Watson could have made it. _And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy. When I tell my own story I have no such aid. And yet I will give my process of thought even as I gave it to my small audience, which included Godfrey's mother in the study of Colonel Emsworth. _Now here was the end of his apology, which, thank God, he was almost finished with. Watson really was amazing not to go mad from these things. And then, taking his lecture again, he put it, (_not_ exactly as he had said it to the waiting family, but he needed to fit it in somewhere).

…_Yes, Mr. Holmes, the coincidence is a remarkable one. But is it coincidence? Are there not subtle forces at work of which we know little? Are we assured that the apprehension from which this young man has no doubt suffered terribly since his exposure to its contagion may not produce a physical effect which simulates that which it fears? At any rate, I pledge my professional reputation— But the lady has fainted! I think that Mr. Kent had better be with her until she recovers from this joyous shock." _And there, suddenly, after he had finished the dénouement of the case, he could not bear to write another word, and ended it.

…

He sent the story to Watson with a little note, "perhaps the public will not be interested in this, but I hope it is more interesting to you."

The next month when he got the Strand magazine (he always did when Watson's stories were in there, though he'd never admit it) He turned to the story and saw:

_The Blanched Soldier_

…Oh, no.

He scanned down the page.

Surely not.

Watson had published the thing!

.

.

.


End file.
